


The Consequences of Loss

by Lady_Panthea



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bureau of Balance - Freeform, I was having feelings okay?, IPRE, Post ep59 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Panthea/pseuds/Lady_Panthea
Summary: Lucretia realizes just how much she's missed the boys. And how much she took from them.





	The Consequences of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> So I was having feelings about TAZ at 3AM and they refused to leave until I wrote it down. So you guys get to suffer with me.

Despite the fact that they didn’t remember her, Lucretia was eternally grateful that Magnus, Merle and Taako were within her sight. She hadn’t wanted to let them go and gods did it hurt but it had been better for them. For all of them.

Framing Barry, and Lup if she ever came back, as her story’s villains wasn’t something she wanted to do, but it was a necessary precaution. She didn’t know what would happen if they were forced to remember. Fisher and its child were powerful, but no one knew the true extent of their powers. Not even Magnus, who had spent the most time with the strange fish before she had taken everything from him.

And that’s what she’d taken. Everything. From all of them. Even if she hadn’t realised it at the time. Of course, she had seen the effects of Davenport but she had thought that it was the worst. One day she would be able to restore them. One day. She had promised herself. Even if they hated her, at least she would have her family back. 

They had been happy where she put them. At least for a while. And despite their lack of memories, the trio had found each other again. They had adventures, watched each other’s backs. Just like the crew of the Starblaster had for decades. A small mismatched family, travelling through the planes with only each other as constants.

But now, they were back within her reach. By inducting them to the Bureau of Balance, she would be able to keep them nearby. Despite the shenanigans and damage they caused she couldn’t help but fight a grin whenever she saw them. It was the norm with them. Merle and his long-winded speeches about Pan, Magnus and his ducks, Taako and his huge ego, hiding a much softer, caring elf within. They were the same as they had been eleven years ago. 

And yet, they weren’t.

Merle had children he kept a secret and a wife he no longer got along with. Magnus was both broken and stronger by the loss of his beloved Julia. And Taako, gods Taako. 

She had thought he was fine. Sure his cooking career had taken a bit of a dive after the incident at Glamour Springs but he had bounced back. He’d survived and found friends again, started to trust people to have his back. She hadn’t realized how much she’d stolen from him until she asked them to fill out some paperwork for their personal files at the B.O.B..

She was sitting in her office, going over them and double checking for any information that may have changed since she last checked up on her friends. There was Merle’s handwriting. Much more flowery than you would expect from someone like him, but it fit none the less. ‘Merle Highchurch’ it proclaimed it large bubbled letters. ‘Cleric and follower of Pan.’

Under family, he had marked his ex-wife and his two children. No new information there. It was nice to know that she had the right data, even before he’d arrived. 

Magnus’ form was next. The familiar script spelling out ‘Magnus Burnsides’ in bold, rushed strokes. 

“Magnus rushes in,” Lucretia laughed to herself. 

She was sorry for what had happened to his wife. She would have done something about it if she had been able to. But news had gotten to her too late. She had thought he had earned his peace and happiness, having led the people of Raven’s Roost to victory. But the world was a cruel place that took pleasure in taking away everything you loved. She would know.

She set the form aside, no new information, before picking up Taako’s. She’d heard him chatting to his friends as he filled it out. There was never a quiet moment when one of the twins were around.

“First name? Taako. Obviously. Who wouldn’t know who I am,” he’d said to Magnus as he wrote his name in elegant looping cursive. “Last name? Well, that would be the name of the most important person of course.”

Lucretia smiled, remembering a similar conversation happening so very long ago. Elves rarely had last names, so, when the IPRE had asked the twins for theirs, they had decided that their last names would be the name of the person most important to them: each other. And thus, Taako Lup and Lup Taako were born. The crew couldn’t have asked for a better pair of arcanists or chefs.

Lucretia shook her head. Those were simpler times. Before the Hunger and the hundred years of travel. Before everyone forgot. The smile the memory had conjured instantly fell when she noticed what Taako had written on his form. 

‘Taako Taaco. Family: None to speak of homie.’

Such a small change and yet such a huge shift. She could almost hear him say it and that was the worst part. He’d forgotten her. Taako had forgotten Lup. In her efforts to protect her plan, Lucretia had made Taako’s worst nightmare a reality. He thought he had been alone. For all his life, he thought he had struggled alone, with no one at his side. No one to learn to cook with. No one to huddle close to on cold nights. No sister to tease and be teased by. No Lup.

And who was Taako without Lup? They were two parts of a whole. As Lup had said, they were each other’s hearts. No wonder Taako had changed the most out of the three boys. He didn’t have his heart, just an empty void of static where it should have been. 

Lucretia had taken it from him. And _that_ , was perhaps the worst thing of all.


End file.
